Trump Receives Credentials of New Kenyan Ambassador to the US Lazarus Amayo

New Kenyan Ambassador to the US Lazarus Amayo has submitted his diplomatic credentials to President Trump.

Amayo, who reported for duty in Washington DC this week, was among eight foreign diplomats who presented their Letters of Credence to Trump in a ceremony at the White House on Friday.

The acceptance of the credentials makes Amayo the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Kenya to the US.

He was appointed to the position by President Kenyatta in May last year to replace Robinson Njeru Githae but he could not report immediately due to what the Foreign Affairs Ministry termed as “procedural matters.”

Before landing this appointment, Amayo served as Kenya’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York.

He is hailed as one of the most experienced Kenyan diplomats having served in several ambassadorial positions in the past 20 years. His first diplomatic posting was as High Commissioner to India, serving between 1999 to 2004. 

He was Kenya’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 2014 to 2018, and also served as the Permanent Representative to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the Commonwealth in London.

Between 2010 and 2014, Amayo was the Director of the Division for Europe and the Commonwealth at Kenya’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He also served as High Commissioner to Zambia and Malawi in addition to being the country’s Permanent Representative to the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) from 2006 to 2010.

He was appointed as the acting Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where he served for two years between 2004 and 2006. He also doubled up as the acting Director of Administration and Head of International Organizations and Conferences in the same Ministry.

Before joining the diplomatic world in 1999, he served as Chief Executive Officer of Catering Levy Trustees, a State corporation, from 1993 to 1997. He has also previously served as Human Resource Manager at the Kenya Posts and Telecommunications Corporation.

From 1989 to 1992, Amayo served as the MP for Karachuonyo Constituency, having been elected on a KANU ticket. In the same period, he also served as Assistant Minister for Education.

The father of three holds a master’s of arts degree in political science from the University of Delhi and a bachelor’s of liberal arts from Spicer Memorial College in India.